Northern Territory Quotes

I’m not here to make friends. Our forces successfully conquered their northern territories regardless of their deals. And I will take the rest of Tamoura next.

Yes—at the cost of a third of your army. What will happen when you try to seize what remains of Tamoura? When the Beldish strike at you again? Queen Maeve is watching you, I’m sure.” He takes a deep breath. “Adelina, you’re Queen of the Sealands now. You’ve annexed Domacca and northern Tamoura in the Sunlands. At some point, your goal should be not to conquer more territories but to keep order in the territories you do have. And you won’t achieve that by ordering your Inquisitors to drag unmarked civilians out into the streets and brand them with a hot iron.

All Australians are required by law to vote in federal elections, including residents of the Northern Territory.

Pearl saltbush Meaning: My hidden worth Maireana sedifolia | South Australia and Northern Territory Common in deserts and salty environments, this low shrub creates a fascinating ecosystem of almost hidden treasures: geckoes, fairy wrens, fungi and lichen colonies. Drought-tolerant, with silvery grey evergreen foliage that forms a dense groundcover that is fire-retardant.

Broad-leaved parkeelya Meaning: By your love, I live and die Calandrinia balonensis | Northern Territory Parkilypa (Pit.) is a succulent growing in sandy soils of arid regions, with fleshy leaves and bright purple flowers, which appear mainly in winter and spring. In times of drought the leaves can be a water source; the whole plant can be baked and eaten.

Lantern bush Meaning: Hope may blind me Abutilon leucopetalum | Northern Territory Tjirin-tjrinpa (Pit.) is found in dry, often rocky inland regions. Leaves have a heart-shaped base. Yellow hibiscus-like flowers appear mostly in winter and spring, but can sometimes appear endlessly, their bright color shining all year round. Used by Anangu children to make small toy spears.

To the ancients, bears symbolized resurrection. The creature goes to sleep for a long time, its heartbeat decreases to almost nothing. The male often impregnates the female right before hibernation, but miraculously, egg and sperm do not unite right away. They float separately in her uterine broth until much later. Near the end of hibernation, the egg and sperm unite and cell division begins, so that the cubs will be born in the spring when the mother is awakening, just in time to care for and teach her new offspring. Not only by reason of awakening from hibernation as though from death, but much more so because the she-bear awakens with new young, this creature is a profound metaphor for our lives, for return and increase coming from something that seemed deadened. The bear is associated with many huntress Goddesses: Artemis and Diana in Greece and Rome, and Muerte and Hecoteptl, mud women deities in the Latina cultures. These Goddesses bestowed upon women the power of tracking, knowing, 'digging out' the psychic aspects of all things. To the Japanese the bear is the symbol of loyalty, wisdom, and strength. In northern Japan where the Ainu tribe lives, the bear is one who can talk to God directly and bring messages back for humans. The cresent moon bear is considered a sacred being, one who was given the white mark on his throat by the Buddhist Goddess Kwan-Yin, whose emblem is the crescent moon. Kwan-Yin is the Goddess of Deep Compassion and the bear is her emissary. "In the psyche, the bear can be understood as the ability to regulate one's life, especially one's feeling life. Bearish power is the ability to move in cycles, be fully alert, or quiet down into a hibernative sleep that renews one's energy for the next cycle. The bear image teaches that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressure gauge for one's emotional life, and most especially that one can be fierce and generous at the same time. One can be reticent and valuable. One can protect one's territory, make one's boundaries clear, shake the sky if need be, yet be available, accessible, engendering all the same.

In late 1998, the inhabitants were invited to become Australia’s seventh state and roundly rejected the notion in a referendum. It appears they quite like being outsiders. In consequence, an area of 523,000 square miles, or about one-fifth of the country, is in Australia but not entirely of it. This throws up some interesting anomalies. All Australians are required by law to vote in federal elections, including residents of the Northern Territory. However, since the Northern Territory is not a state, it has no seats in Parliament. So the Territorians elect representatives who go to Canberra and attend sessions of Parliament (at least that’s what they say in their letters home) but don’t actually vote or take part or have any consequence at all. Even more interestingly, during national referendums the citizens of the Northern Territory are also required to vote, but the votes don’t actually count towards anything. They’re just put in a drawer or something. Seems a little odd to me, but then, as I say, the people seem content with the arrangement. Personally,

But from earliest times the barrier at Shirakawa was somehow special. There was a magic, a glamour about it. For it was here that travellers crossed over into the untamed northern territories, the remote land of Oshu. When poets came this way, it was customary for them to mark their crossing with a poem; and even poets who did not make the long journey were expected to produce a poem on the subject. Nöin Hoshi, an eleventh-century priest, wrote the most famous poem of all miyako o ba kasumi to tomoni tachishikado aki-kaze zo fuku Shirakawa no seki Though I left the capital With the spring mist — The autumn wind blows At Shirakawa Barrier

Look at every territorial dispute you care to mention. Northern Ireland, for instance.” “Religion in that case,” Jamie ventured. “Not just. Religion was the badge of identity, but it wasn’t really about whether you went to Mass or to a tub-thumping Protestant chapel. It was a result of the movement of people. The Protestant planters—many of them Scots—replaced the native Irish, remember? Movement of people again.

The bow of the Carpathians as they curve around northwestward begins to define the northern border of Czechoslovakia. Long before it can complete that service the bow bends down toward the Austrian Alps, but a border region of mountainous uplift, the Sudetes, continues across Czechoslovakia. Some sixty miles beyond Prague it turns southwest to form a low range between Czechoslovakia and Germany that is called, in German, the Erzgebirge: the Ore Mountains. The Erzgebirge began to be mined for iron in medieval days. In 1516 a rich silver lode was discovered in Joachimsthal (St. Joachim’s dale), in the territory of the Count von Schlick, who immediately appropriated the mine. In 1519 coins were first struck from its silver at his command. Joachimsthaler, the name for the new coins, shortened to thaler, became “dollar” in English before 1600. Thereby the U.S. dollar descends from the silver of Joachimsthal.

It is unclear how closely Grant followed current affairs as the national debate over slavery broadened and intensified. Through the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted as a free state while other territories wrested from Mexico were left free to adopt slavery or not. In exchange, the North appeased the South by submitting to a strict new fugitive slave law that made many northerners feel like accomplices in the hated institution of their southern brethren.

But American statesmen have studied the constitutions of other states more than that of their own, and have succeeded in obscuring the American system in the minds of the people, and giving them in its place pure and simple democracy, which is its false development or corruption. Under the influence of this false development, the people were fast losing sight of the political truth that, though the people are sovereign, it is the organic, not the inorganic people, the territorial people, not the people as simple population, and were beginning to assert the absolute God-given right of the majority to govern. All the changes made in the bosom of the States themselves have consisted in removing all obstacles to the irresponsible will of the majority, leaving minorities and individuals at their mercy. This tendency to a centralized democracy had more to do with provoking secession and rebellion than the anti-slavery sentiments of the Northern, Central, and Western States.

In 1854, President Franklin Pierce, an anti-abolitionist Democrat, signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act into law, sending slavery’s opponents into a fury. The law, authored by Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas, created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska but also allowed for the expansion of slavery into the North, where it had been banned since 1819. Slavery would be permitted or banned in Kansas, a northern territory, based on a popular vote among white males in the territory. The law would potentially reintroduce slavery into the North, endangering freedmen and -women and reinforcing slavery’s grip on America. Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison published angry treatises against it in their papers. On the steps of the courthouse in Peoria, Illinois, a largely unknown politician named Abraham Lincoln gave a three-hour speech decrying the law. “I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world,” he told hundreds of onlookers. Afterward, his Peoria speech became a thing of legend that catapulted him into national prominence.

Progressives today are quick to fault “America” for slavery and a host of other outrages. America did this, America did that. As we will see in this book, America didn’t do those things, the Democrats did. So the Democrats have cleverly foisted their sins on America, and then presented themselves as the messiahs offering redemption for those sins. It’s crazy, but it’s also ingenious. We have to give them credit for ingenuity. The second whitewash is to portray the Civil War entirely in terms of the North versus the South. The North is supposedly the anti-slavery side and the South is the pro-slavery side. A recent example is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s article about the Confederate battle flag in The Atlantic.3 Now of course there is an element of truth in this, in that the Civil War was fought between northern states and southern states. But this neat and convenient division ignores several important details. First, the defenders of the Confederate cause were, almost without exception, Democrats. Coates cites many malefactors from Senator Jefferson Davis to Senator James Henry Hammond to Georgia Governor Joseph Brown. Yet while identifying these men as southerners and Confederates, Coates omits to identify them as Democrats. Second, Coates and other progressives conveniently ignore the fact that northern Democrats were also protectors of slavery. We will see in this chapter how Stephen Douglas and other northern Democrats fought to protect slavery in the South and in the new territories. Moreover, the southerners who fought for the Confederacy cannot be said to have fought merely to protect slavery on their plantations. Indeed, fewer than one-third of white families in the South on the eve of the Civil War had slaves. Thus the rigid North-South interpretation of the Civil War conceals—and is intended to conceal—the active complicity of Democrats across the country to save, protect, and even extend the “peculiar institution.” As the Charleston Mercury editorialized during the secession debate, the duty of the South was to “rally under the banner of the Democratic Party which has recognized and supported . . . the rights of the South.”4 The real divide was between the Democratic Party as the upholder of slavery and the Republican Party as the adversary of slavery. All the figures who upheld and defended American slavery—Senators John C. Calhoun and Stephen Douglas, President James Buchanan, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, architect of the Dred Scott decision, and the main leaders of the Confederacy—were Democrats. All the heroes of black emancipation—from the black abolitionists Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, to the woman who organized the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, to the leader whose actions finally destroyed American slavery, Abraham Lincoln—were Republicans. It is of the utmost importance to progressive propagandists to conceal or at least ignore this essential historical truth.

Many kinds of animal behavior can be explained by genetic similarity theory. Animals have a preference for close kin, and study after study has shown that they have a remarkable ability to tell kin from strangers. Frogs lay eggs in bunches, but they can be separated and left to hatch individually. When tadpoles are then put into a tank, brothers and sisters somehow recognize each other and cluster together rather than mix with tadpoles from different mothers. Female Belding’s ground squirrels may mate with more than one male before they give birth, so a litter can be a mix of full siblings and half siblings. Like tadpoles, they can tell each other apart. Full siblings cooperate more with each other than with half-siblings, fight less, and are less likely to run each other out of the territory when they grow up. Even bees know who their relatives are. In one experiment, bees were bred for 14 different degrees of relatedness—sisters, cousins, second cousins, etc.—to bees in a particular hive. When the bees were then released near the hive, guard bees had to decide which ones to let in. They distinguished between degrees of kinship with almost perfect accuracy, letting in the closest relatives and chasing away more distant kin. The correlation between relatedness and likelihood of being admitted was a remarkable 0.93. Ants are famous for cooperation and willingness to sacrifice for the colony. This is due to a quirk in ant reproduction that means worker ants are 70 percent genetically identical to each other. But even among ants, there can be greater or less genetic diversity, and the most closely related groups of ants appear to cooperate best. Linepithema humile is a tiny ant that originated in Argentina but migrated to the United States. Many ants died during the trip, and the species lost much of its genetic diversity. This made the northern branch of Linepithema humile more cooperative than the one left in Argentina, where different colonies quarrel and compete with each other. This new level of cooperation has helped the invaders link nests into supercolonies and overwhelm local species of ants. American entomologists want to protect American ants by introducing genetic diversity so as to make the newcomers more quarrelsome. Even plants cooperate with close kin and compete with strangers. Normally, when two plants are put in the same pot, they grow bigger root systems, trying to crowd each other out and get the most nutrients. A wild flower called the Sea Rocket, which grows on beaches, does not do that if the two plants come from the same “mother” plant. They recognize each others’ root secretions and avoid wasteful competition.

HISTORICAL NOTE There are no nuclear power stations in Belarus. Of the functioning stations in the territory of the former USSR, the ones closest to Belarus are of the old Soviet-designed RBMK type. To the north, the Ignalinsk station, to the east, the Smolensk station, and to the south, Chernobyl. On April 26, 1986, at 1:23:58, a series of explosions destroyed the reactor in the building that housed Energy Block #4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. The catastrophe at Chernobyl became the largest technological disaster of the twentieth century. For tiny Belarus (population: 10 million), it was a national disaster. During the Second World War, the Nazis destroyed 619 Belarussian villages along with their inhabitants. As a result of Chernobyl, the country lost 485 villages and settlements. Of these, 70 have been forever buried underground. During the war, one out of every four Belarussians was killed; today, one out of every five Belarussians lives on contaminated land. This amounts to 2.1 million people, of whom 700,000 are children. Among the demographic factors responsible for the depopulation of Belarus, radiation is number one. In the Gomel and Mogilev regions, which suffered the most from Chernobyl, mortality rates exceed birth rates by 20%. As a result of the accident, 50 million Ci of radionuclides were released into the atmosphere. Seventy percent of these descended on Belarus; fully 23% of its territory is contaminated by cesium-137 radionuclides with a density of over 1 Ci/km2. Ukraine on the other hand has 4.8% of its territory contaminated, and Russia, 0.5%. The area of arable land with a density of more than 1 Ci/km2 is over 18 million hectares; 2.4 thousand hectares have been taken out of the agricultural economy. Belarus is a land of forests. But 26% of all forests and a large part of all marshes near the rivers Pripyat, Dniepr, and Sozh are considered part of the radioactive zone. As a result of the perpetual presence of small doses of radiation, the number of people with cancer, mental retardation, neurological disorders, and genetic mutations increases with each year. —“Chernobyl.” Belaruskaya entsiklopedia On April 29, 1986, instruments recorded high levels of radiation in Poland, Germany, Austria, and Romania. On April 30, in Switzerland and northern Italy. On May 1 and 2, in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and northern Greece. On May 3, in Israel, Kuwait, and Turkey. . . . Gaseous airborne particles traveled around the globe: on May 2 they were registered in Japan, on May 5 in India, on May 5 and 6 in the U.S. and Canada. It took less than a week for Chernobyl to become a problem for the entire world. —“The Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident in Belarus.” Minsk, Sakharov International College on Radioecology The fourth reactor, now known as the Cover, still holds about twenty tons of nuclear fuel in its lead-and-metal core. No one knows what is happening with it. The sarcophagus was well made, uniquely constructed, and the design engineers from St. Petersburg should probably be proud. But it was constructed in absentia, the plates were put together with the aid of robots and helicopters, and as a result there are fissures. According to some figures, there are now over 200 square meters of spaces and cracks, and radioactive particles continue to escape through them . . . Might the sarcophagus collapse? No one can answer that question, since it’s still impossible to reach many of the connections and constructions in order to see if they’re sturdy. But everyone knows that if the Cover were to collapse, the consequences would be even more dire than they were in 1986. —Ogonyok magazine, No. 17, April 1996

robbery by European nations of each other's territories has never been a sin, is not a sin to-day. To the several cabinets the several political establishments of the world are clotheslines; and a large part of the official duty of these cabinets is to keep an eye on each other's wash and grab what they can of it as opportunity offers. All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth—including America, of course—consist of pilferings from other people's wash. No tribe, howsoever insignificant, and no nation, howsoever mighty, occupies a foot of land that was not stolen. When the English, the French, and the Spaniards reached America, the Indian tribes had been raiding each other's territorial clothes-lines for ages, and every acre of ground in the continent had been stolen and re-stolen 500 times. The English, the French, and the Spaniards went to work and stole it all over again; and when that was satisfactorily accomplished they went diligently to work and stole it from each other. In Europe and Asia and Africa every acre of ground has been stolen several millions of times. A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law. Christian governments are as frank to-day, as open and above-board, in discussing projects for raiding each other's clothes-lines as ever they were before the Golden Rule came smiling into this inhospitable world and couldn't get a night's lodging anywhere. In 150 years England has beneficently retired garment after garment from the Indian lines, until there is hardly a rag of the original wash left dangling anywhere. In 800 years an obscure tribe of Muscovite savages has risen to the dazzling position of Land-Robber-in-Chief; she found a quarter of the world hanging out to dry on a hundred parallels of latitude, and she scooped in the whole wash. She keeps a sharp eye on a multitude of little lines that stretch along the northern boundaries of India, and every now and then she snatches a hip-rag or a pair of pyjamas. It is England's prospective property, and Russia knows it; but Russia cares nothing for that. In fact, in our day land-robbery, claim-jumping, is become a European governmental frenzy. Some have been hard at it in the borders of China, in Burma, in Siam, and the islands of the sea; and all have been at it in Africa. Africa has been as coolly divided up and portioned out among the gang as if they had bought it and paid for it. And now straightway they are beginning the old game again—to steal each other's grabbings. Germany found a vast slice of Central Africa with the English flag and the English missionary and the English trader scattered all over it, but with certain formalities neglected—no signs up, "Keep off the grass," "Trespassers-forbidden," etc.—and she stepped in with a cold calm smile and put up the signs herself, and swept those English pioneers promptly out of the country. There is a tremendous point there. It can be put into the form of a maxim: Get your formalities right—never mind about the moralities. It was an impudent thing; but England had to put up with it. Now, in the case of Madagascar, the formalities had originally been observed, but by neglect they had fallen into desuetude ages ago. England should have snatched Madagascar from the French clothes-line. Without an effort she could have saved those harmless natives from the calamity of French civilization, and she did not do it. Now it is too late. The signs of the times show plainly enough what is going to happen. All the savage lands in the world are going to be brought under subjection to the Christian governments of Europe. I am

The war against ISIS in Iraq was a long, hard slog, and for a time the administration was as guilty of hyping progress as the most imaginative briefers at the old “Five O’Clock Follies” in Saigon had been. In May 2015, an ISIS assault on Ramadi and a sandstorm that grounded U.S. planes sent Iraqi forces and U.S. Special Forces embedded with them fleeing the city. Thanks to growing hostility between the Iraqi government and Iranian-supported militias in the battle, the city wouldn’t be taken until the end of the year. Before it was over we had sent well over five thousand military personnel back to Iraq, including Special Forces operators embedded as advisors with Iraqi and Kurdish units. A Navy SEAL, a native Arizonan whom I had known when he was a boy, was killed in northern Iraq. His name was Charles Keating IV, the grandson of my old benefactor, with whom I had been implicated all those years ago in the scandal his name had branded. He was by all accounts a brave and fine man, and I mourned his loss. Special Forces operators were on the front lines when the liberation of Mosul began in October 2016. At immense cost, Mosul was mostly cleared of ISIS fighters by the end of July 2017, though sporadic fighting continued for months. The city was in ruins, and the traumatized civilian population was desolate. By December ISIS had been defeated everywhere in Iraq. I believe that had U.S. forces retained a modest but effective presence in Iraq after 2011 many of these tragic events might have been avoided or mitigated. Would ISIS nihilists unleashed in the fury and slaughter of the Syrian civil war have extended their dystopian caliphate to Iraq had ten thousand or more Americans been in country? Probably, but with American advisors and airpower already on the scene and embedded with Iraqi security forces, I think their advance would have been blunted before they had seized so much territory and subjected millions to the nightmare of ISIS rule. Would Maliki have concentrated so much power and alienated Sunnis so badly that the insurgency would catch fire again? Would Iran’s influence have been as detrimental as it was? Would Iraqis have collaborated to prevent a full-scale civil war from erupting? No one can answer for certain. But I believe that our presence there would have had positive effects. All we can say for certain is that Iraq still has a difficult road to walk, but another opportunity to progress toward that hopeful vision of a democratic, independent nation that’s learned to accommodate its sectarian differences, which generations of Iraqis have suffered without and hundreds of thousands of Americans risked everything for.

For abolitionists, who advocated the immediate emancipation of all slaves, and free-soilers, who simply opposed the spread of slavery into the western territories, the existence of such a group proved the destructive effect of slavery on social morals and human industry and the inordinate economic power of the planter elite. It also served as an implicit warning of the disastrous consequences of the spread of slavery into nonslaveholding regions and its debilitating effect on the work ethic of otherwise stalwart white farmers. For slave-holders, particularly those at the apex of southern society, the idleness of rural working-class whites justified the “peculiar institution” and made clear the need for a planter-led economic and social hierarchy. Planter D. R. Hundley wrote, for example, that “poor whites” were “the laziest two-legged animals that walk erect on the face of the earth . . . [and exhibited] a natural stupidity or dullness of intellect that almost surpasses belief.” To abolitionists and proslavery ideologues alike, therefore, southern poor whites utterly lacked industry, intelligence, social propriety, and honor, the essential ingredients for political and social equality and thus should not be trusted with political decision-making.7 Northern and southern middle- to upper-class commentators perceived this class of people as so utterly degraded that they challenged their assertion of “whiteness,” the one claim southern working-class whites had to political equality, “normative” status, and social superiority to free and enslaved blacks. Like Byrd and the author of “The Carolina Sand-Hillers,” journalists and travel writers repeatedly compared “poor whites” unfavorably to other supposedly inferior people of color, be they enslaved blacks, Indians, or even Mexican peasants. Through a variety of arguments, including genetic inferiority, excessive interbreeding with “nonwhites,” and environmental factors, such as the destructive influences of the southern climate, rampant disease, and a woefully inadequate diet, these writers asserted that “poor whites” were neither truly “white” nor clearly “nonwhite” but instead, a separate “‘Cracker’ race” in all ways so debased that they had no capacity for social advancement. This attitude is clear in an 1866 article from the Boston Daily Advertiser that proclaimed that this social class had reached depths of “[s]uch filthy poverty, such foul ignorance, such idiotic imbecility” that they could never be truly civilized. “[T]ime and effort will lead the negro up to intelligent manhood,” the author concluded, “but I almost doubt if it will be possible to ever lift this ‘white trash’ into respectability.”8 Contempt for working-class whites was almost as strong among African Americans as among middle-class and elite whites. Enslaved African Americans invented derogatory terms containing explicit versions of “whiteness” such as “(poor) white trash” and “poor buckra” (a derivative form of the West African word for “white man”). Although relations between slaves and non-elite southern whites were complex, many slaves deeply resented the role of poor whites as overseers and patrol riders and adopted their owners’ view that elite southern planters were socially and morally superior. Many also believed that blacks, enslaved and free, formed a middle layer of social respectability between the planter aristocracy at the top of the social system and the “poor whites” at the bottom. The construction of a “poor white” and “white trash” social and cultural category thus allowed black slaves to carve out a space of social superiority, as well as permitted the white planter elite to justify enormous economic and social inequality among whites in a supposedly democratic society.9

In 1946, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin had sought to seize Iran’s northern provinces by refusing to withdraw Soviet forces that were deployed there during the war. Truman objected, insisting on maintaining Iran’s territorial integrity even if it meant rupturing the already frayed U.S. alliance with the Soviets; Stalin backed off.

The gyre that pulls this sunrise ocean moves west from Africa across the equator then caresses this thumb of land on Mexico’s flank. The Gulf Stream carries the warm waters farther north. Like the ocean currents, airflow also moves in a circular pattern, captive to the earth’s rotation, pulled one way or the other on either side of the equator: the Coriolis effect. This force can act upon the spiraling of water down drains, counterclockwise if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, clockwise if you are south of the equator. We are still in the Northern Hemisphere but just barely. My quest for drain behavior reassures me that we will not be flung off the spinning globe—you can never be too sure. On a flight to Australia once, when the airplane was precisely over the equator, I rushed to the airplane’s lavatory and filled the sink with water. Then I pulled the plug to see which way the water would circle the drain, hoping for some sort of momentous turmoil in the physics of deflection. When you venture well beyond home, it is important to assess the territory.

What widened the split between the two halves of Rus dramatically was the arrival of the Mongols. Kiev and southern Rus suffered devastation, but were abandoned again in little over a century. The northern principalities, in contrast, became permanent tributaries of the Golden Horde. The Mongols ruled by proxy, granting charters to local leaders in exchange for tribute. The most successful northern princes became those who could squeeze most men and money out of their territories for delivery to the khan at his capital on the Volga.

All of our territory lying beyond the Alleghanies, north and south, was first won for us by the Southwesterners, fighting for their own hand. The northern part was afterwards filled up by the thrifty, vigorous men of the Northeast, whose sons became the real rulers as well as the preservers of the Union; but these settlements of Northerners were rendered possible only by the deeds of the nation as a whole. They entered on land that the Southerners had won, and they were kept there by the strong arm of the Federal Government; whereas the Southerners owed most of their victories only to themselves.

Democratic senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois masterminded the legislation. Douglas saw the need to organize the territories and knew that he needed Southern support. Responding to pressure from Democratic senators James Mason and Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia, Andrew Butler of South Carolina, and David Aitchison of Missouri, Douglas crafted the measure and included an “explicit repeal of the ban on slavery north of 36° 30’.”1 The repeal of the ban on slavery in new territories created a firestorm. Northern opponents, including Salmon Chase, condemned it as “an atrocious plot” of slave power to “convert free territory” into a “dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves.”2 Chase and his allies published the “Appeal of the Independent Democrats” who “condemned this ‘gross violation of a sacred pledge’” and promised to “call the people to come to the rescue of the country from the domination of slavery.”3 Chase closed by warning that “the dearest interests of freedom and the Union are in imminent peril and called for religious and political organization to defeat the bill.

In the decades following the Revolution the northern states moved to destroy the institution, and by 1804 every northern state had committed itself to emancipation in one form or another. In many cases blacks themselves took the lead in using the Revolutionary language of liberty to attack slavery. By 1810 the number of free blacks in the northern states had grown from several hundred in 1770 to nearly 50,000. The Revolutionary vision of a society of independent freeholders led Congress in the 1780s specifically to forbid slavery in the newly organized Northwest Territory between the Appalachians and the Mississippi. The new federal Constitution promised, in 1808, an end to the international importation of slaves, which many hoped would cripple the institution. In fact, all of the Revolutionary leaders, including southerners like Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Henry Laurens, deplored the injustice of slavery and assumed that it would soon die away. This was perhaps the most illusory of the several illusions the Revolutionary leaders had about the future of America.

Kingdom of Rogdon in the Nocean Empire, and no doubt you must be Mirkos, the great Battle Mage of the King.” He came up to Mirkos and made an extremely elaborate bow. Mirkos returned the greeting with a mere nod. He had immediately recognized the slippery Rogdonian spy who carried out all manner of subterfuges in Nocean territory under the cover of Royal Emissary. “Since the two attacks upon such notable persons of the Kingdom, relationships with the Nocean Empire have turned critical. At all times they have denied being involved in the murder attempts. Mulko, Regent of the North, has personally assured me they had nothing to do with the attacks. But after the second attack, the one directed against you personally, Mulko himself threw me out of Nocean lands and closed the border. Which is something truly suspicious, if the Noceans are as innocent as they claim to be. Even in such serious and suspicious circumstances as these, I’ve kept in contact with Zecly, his personal counselor and powerful Sorcerer, who I warrant is known to you all.” Mirkos nodded. Fame, and not exactly the desirable kind, went before the great Nocean Sorcerer. “But at all times he has denied any involvement in both attempts. A few days ago the messages stopped, unilaterally. And the army set off. I suspect it’s under direct orders of the Nocean Emperor: Malota the Ruthless, a man of insatiable ambition and widely-known perversion. His atrocities and genocides are infamous. He controls the southern Empire with an iron hand, crushing the slightest opposition to his tyranny, supported by dark Sorcerers and witch-men. He’s always had his sights on the northern kingdoms, but he hasn’t had the chance, that is until now…

The rattlesnake represents the very acme of serpentine sophistication. It has superlative sensing organs that exploit infra-red and chemo-sensory stimuli to enable it to locate its prey. It is armed with one of the most powerful of all venoms with which it can inject its victims with surgical precision. It is long-lived and produces its young fully formed and immediately capable of fending for themselves. But it has one vulnerability, one way in which human beings who see rattlesnakes as a threat to their own dominance are able to attack it. In North America, in the northern part of the rattlesnake’s range, winters can be so severe that a cold-blooded snake cannot remain active. So many species that are common elsewhere in North America do not spread far north. Rattlers are among the few that do. They survive the winter by another special adaptation. They have developed the ability to hibernate. On the prairies of the mid-West and north into Canada, they choose to do so in the burrows of prairie dogs, rodents related to marmots. Elsewhere in the woodlands, they find outcrops of rocks that are riven by deep clefts. But such places are not abundant. As autumn approaches and temperatures fall, great numbers of rattlesnakes set out on long cross-country journeys of many miles following traditional routes to the places where they and their parents before them hibernate each year. Some of these wintering dens may contain a thousand individuals. So those human beings who hate snakes and who, in spite of the rattler’s sophisticated early warning system, believe that they are a constant and lethal threat, are also able, at this season of the year, to massacre rattlesnakes in thousands. As a consequence one of the most advanced and wonderfully sophisticated of all snakes — perhaps of all reptiles — is now, in many parts of the territories it once ruled, in real danger of extinction.

Notoriously, there are disputed territories – for example, border areas and regions occupied by groups which are not independent nations, but many of whose members wish that they were. Again, there are territories like that which used to be called Palestine; here the principles which in the case of Norway point univocally to one national group as that to which the area belongs diverge, some supporting the claims of the Israelis and others the claims of the Palestinian Arabs. Cyprus and Northern Ireland are two other obvious examples of conflicting prima facie rights of distinguishable national groups. In such cases the appeal, by both parties to a dispute, to supposedly absolute rights is disastrous. It reduces the readiness to negotiate and compromise, and it seems to justify any atrocities against the enemy, and any resulting losses and suffering for one's own side, that are needed to vindicate those rights.

If the city has failed to definitively prove the existence of werewolves, we'll go find evidence elsewhere." Luthor frowned. "Would this 'elsewhere' be beyond the wall, in the territory of the werewolves?" Simon smiled at his friend's discomfort. "Indeed it would be." "I'm going to need a thicker jacket," Luthor sighed.

Samaria’s boundaries run from the Jordan River to the coast, from Jericho in the south to the Lebanon hills in the north. Originally this formed the territories given to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. During the reign of Hoshea the Second, the Assyrians conquered Palestine’s Northern Kingdom. The victors captured a large number of Israelites as slaves. Those who remained intermarried with the new Assyrian colonists. When the Greeks conquered our land four hundred years later, they made the city of Samaria their capital. By the time Herod the Great was given rule over this land, these northerners had established their own temple on top of Mount Gerizim and disavowed all connection to Jerusalem.

Kerry shifted her attention from Hardy to the rest of the still-milling crowd and tried to ignore the murmurs that included Cooper’s nickname for her and speculations on there being yet another McCrae family wedding. She needed to put an end to that before it even started. She clapped her hands, drawing everyone’s attention to her, then strode to the bar and hoisted herself right up on it, straight to her feet. She was no weakling herself. “Okay, listen up, everyone.” The noise abruptly wound down again, though not to the complete silence of before. “I’d like you to meet Cooper Jax, from Cameroo Downs cattle station, Northern Territory, Australia.” Heads swiveled and Cooper smiled, nodded several times, shifting his gaze around the room as he did, easily meeting everyone’s avidly curious gazes. But when that gaze went back to Kerry, despite the smile creasing his handsome face, the look in his eyes was anything but casual. Kerry ignored that. Or tried to. She shifted her attention back to the crowd. “I worked the Jax family’s station for close to a year, just before coming home for Logan’s wedding.” Blueberry Cove was small enough that everyone knew who Logan McCrae was. Not only due to his police chief status but, as it happened, the McCraes were also a founding family of the Cove. There wasn’t much the general populace didn’t know about the entire history of her family, past and present. “Long time for you,” came a voice from somewhere in the crowd. Kerry recognized the scratchy voice; Stokey Parker. A Rusty Puffin regular and one of Fergus’s cronies. “Heard tell you don’t stick in one place too long. Guess we know now what the draw was Down Under.” A chuckle went up in the crowd, and Kerry knew this wasn’t going as she’d planned. Not that she’d had much of a plan. “Thanks, Stokey. Australia is a beautiful country. I loved it there.” That much was sincere. All the same, she carefully kept from looking anywhere near Cooper’s direction. “But I’m home in the Cove now.” She expanded her gaze to encompass the full crowd again. “I appreciate that you’re all entertained by this…little surprise.” She swallowed hard and looked at Cooper as she added, “But there’s not going to be another McCrae wedding.

I can’t believe you did this,” she said a moment later, and he noted that along with her irritation, she was gripping the steering wheel as if her life depended on it. That shouldn’t have reassured him, but it did. “Which part?” he asked with a chuckle. She gaped at him, then turned her attention back to the road. “All of the parts.” She drove on for another few seconds, making the turn onto the road that led down to the harbor, then suddenly stomped on the brake, causing him to brace a quick hand on the dash. She jerked the truck to the side of the road and came to a full stop before turning to him, her expression urgent. “Did something happen? To your family? Cooper, don’t even think about not--” “What?” he asked, honestly surprised by the sudden barrage, and more so by the clear concern in her eyes. “Your family,” she repeated, as if he was a bit slow. And maybe he was. About a lot of things. “I was just thinking I can’t imagine them being thrilled with you taking off like this, halfway around the world no less, leaving them shorthanded and--then I thought, oh no, something must have happened, because why else would you--” She broke off, shook her head, and seemed to look sightlessly at her hands, still gripping the steering wheel. “Because why else would I what?” She finally looked at him, and along with that goodly dose of agitation and not a little honest confusion, he saw that sliver of vulnerability again. “Because what else would cause a man I knew to be perfectly sane and fully committed to running one of the biggest cattle stations in the Northern Territory alongside his big, loud, boisterous, and very close-knit and beloved family--to up and run halfway around the world chasing after a…after--” “You?” She blinked, closed her mouth, opened it again, then simply shook her head and looked away.

I was just thinking I can’t imagine them being thrilled with you taking off like this, halfway around the world no less, leaving them shorthanded and--then I thought, oh no, something must have happened, because why else would you--” She broke off, shook her head, and seemed to look sightlessly at her hands, still gripping the steering wheel. “Because why else would I what?” She finally looked at him, and along with that goodly dose of agitation and not a little honest confusion, he saw that sliver of vulnerability again. “Because what else would cause a man I knew to be perfectly sane and fully committed to running one of the biggest cattle stations in the Northern Territory alongside his big, loud, boisterous, and very close-knit and beloved family--to up and run halfway around the world chasing after a…after--” “You?

I ran into similar, though less dramatic events after moving to Yale Law School, where I spent two years as a Senior Research Scholar. Hawaii’s two Democratic U.S. Senators once contacted the law school to complain about testimony that I gave before the Hawaii state legislature. They blamed me for somehow single-handedly scuttling the new gun registration laws that were being considered. The associate dean of the law school called me up about the complaints and grilled me about my testimony. I am certain that neither of these incidents would have occurred if I had been on the other side the gun debate. Over the years, many academics have told me that they would have studied gun control if not for fear of damage to their careers. They didn’t want to run the risk of coming out on the wrong side of the debate. From my experience, that is understandable. Eventually, I was forced out of academia. There is only an abundance of funding for those researchers who support gun control. There is a war on guns. Just like with any war there are real casualties. Police are probably the single most important factor in reducing crime, but police themselves understand that they almost always show up at the crime scene after the crime has been committed. When the police can’t be there, guns are by far the most effective way for people to protect themselves from criminals. And the most vulnerable people are the ones who benefit the most from being able to protect themselves: women and the elderly, people who are relatively weaker physically, as well as poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas—the most likely victims of violent crime. When gun control advocates can’t simply ban guns outright, they impose high fees and taxes on guns. When the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, had their handgun ban struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge in March 2016, they passed a $1,000 excise tax on guns—a tax they hoped would serve as a model for the rest of the U.S.8 I hope that this book provides the ammunition people need for some of the major battles ahead. We must fight to keep people safe.

The practice continues throughout the country. Immigrants can feel “on the border” almost anywhere in the territory of the U.S., and have been subject to such raids in many Northern cities. The key is surprise and drama, especially sudden unexpected violence, or simply the threat of it, which instills wariness and unease in whole immigrant families as they come to and from work. In

But in the beginning of the fourth century, Ulster’s power was irrevocably broken, and by far the greater portion of her territory wrested from her — her people driven into miserably narrow bounds from which, ever after, they can hardly be said to have emerged. It was when Muiredeach Tireach, grandson of Carbri of the Liffey, was High-King of Ireland, that Ulster was despoiled and broken by his nephews, the three Collas, who, on the ruins of the old kingdom of Uladh, founded a new kingdom — of Oirgialla (Oriel) — which was henceforth for nearly a thousand years to play an important part in the history of Northern Ireland. Muiredeach’s

Let’s begin with ISIS. As of the writing of this book, the terrorists of ISIS—once known as al-Qaeda in Iraq—control territory as large as an entire nation-state, with much of northern Syria and northern Iraq under its control. It is threatening Baghdad and the Kurdish capital city of Erbil, and it recently controlled (and still threatens) a poorly constructed dam near Mosul (one of Iraq’s largest cities). If that dam is blown, it would drown an entire region in a wall of water, killing hundreds of thousands. ISIS is brutal beyond imagination to anyone—Christian, Jew, Yazidi, and even Shiite Muslim—who is not aligned with its jihadist form of Sunni Islam. In Syria, ISIS has slaughtered Shiites, Christians, and Alawites (an obscure Islamic sect). In Iraq, it has done the same, giving Christians in conquered territories a chilling ultimatum: “Convert, leave your homes, or die.

To keep the peace, he did not take offence but dug yet another well that the men of Gerar also filled with earth. It came to my attention that men were causing a disturbance so I had left Salem to see if there might be a peaceful solution. It had also come to the attention of Abimelech that a mighty prince was slowly taking over the northern territory of his kingdom. I had come just in time to see Abimelech standing with his arms crossed and with Apollos and Isaac standing face to stomach with each other.

While the secessionists in Jubaland have continued to contest their rights to secede amid enduring opposition from Mogadishu, today, both Somaliland and Puntland are in fact independent states. Neither the African Union (AU) nor the United Nations (UN) have so far formally granted the crucial recognition desperately sought by each of the secessionist enclaves. The main problem is that the majority of member nations at both the AU and UN (including veto-holding China, one of the few remaining land empires) are stoutly indifferent to the idea of secession for fear that similar political demands could materialize and affect politics within their own borders.1 Despite the international opposition, ironically Somaliland has earned a good repute among its local and international observers as being under a more effective government than the other regions of the country, including the decimated and hapless Transitional Government based in Mogadishu. This is regardless of Somaliland’s extreme condition of poverty.2 An AU mission that visited the separatist northern territory in 2006 raised the hope of recognition of Somaliland, but the favorable report of that mission was not followed through on by the AU’s governing Heads of States. The AU “refused to recognize Somaliland’s independence, citing the maxim that there would be chaos if colonial boundaries were not observed.

Back in the eighth century bc two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, occupied roughly the territory of modern Israel. The two kingdoms fought each other, but their inhabitants shared a religion and a common ancestry, because all of them belonged to one of twelve tribes descended from the twelve sons of Jacob. The kingdom of Israel was the older of the two and was originally the location of the religion’s holy sites. When that kingdom was invaded by the Assyrians in the eighth century bc, though, tens of thousands of its inhabitants were carried off to northern Iraq. The kingdom of Judah was spared; its inhabitants came to be called Judeans, and then Jews. They, too, were taken into exile in Babylon, and came back with new ideas and changed traditions. As for the exiles from Israel, they were never heard of again, and came to be called the Ten Lost Tribes. But not all the ten tribes were truly lost, say the Samaritans. Some were deported by the Assyrians, yes, but others remained.

Two million may not at first seem enormous in a population of thirty-four million. But Aboriginal peoples are now one of the largest cultural groups in the country. Combine that size with their historic role, their treaty powers, their legal and constitutional positions and their influence over large stretches of commodity-rich land. Think of them as the majority, or the near majority, or the second-largest group in the three northern territories as well as in Labrador, the northern half of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Soon to be one-third of the Saskatchewan workforce. Think of them as the single most convincing argument for Canadian legitimacy in the Arctic. Think of their continuing victories in the courts, re-establishing the historic balance. These numbers and legal strengths are now

These attacks on slavery provoked the defense of slavery that formed the cornerstone of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party in the South invented the “positive good” school that argued slavery was good not only for the master but also for the slave. The champion of this school was the Democratic Senator John C. Calhoun. Northern Democrats, led by Senator Stephen Douglas, produced a subtler but no less invidious apologia for slavery: “popular sovereignty,” a doctrine that allowed each state and territory to decide for itself whether it wanted slavery.

The biblical Hebrew narrative refers to the northern kingdom as the 'House of Joseph' and more specifically, 'Ephraim'. [Ephraim is often seen as the tribe that embodied the entire Northern Kingdom and the royal house resided in that tribe's territory]; and what was very surprising to me is when I discovered the Aryan signature behind that story. The House of The Sacred Bull was after all the signature of the Hebrew worship and this non-Abrahamic Aryan tradition is portrayed vividly in the biblical Aryan narrative as follows: Ephraim's name is derived from the word 'pr/phr' which means 'bull/house' and he was the one who got blessed and whose seed became a multitude of nations resembling thereby the function of Hathor (the feminine Bull), the goddess of fertility; this certainly cannot be a coincidence. Joseph's other son on the other hand is called according to the Bible, 'Manasseh'. It is as if the name itself was shouting to be given audience and attention since the Hindu goddess of the seven-headed snakes is called 'Manasa'. That's not all yet - the most interesting part of this observation of mine is when I realized that 'Manasa' was cursed using a hapax legomenon word (i.e., a word that occurs only once within a text) which is שכל (sh-k-l), or simply the 'Sickle' tool with which the head of 'Manasa' is to be chopped off in other narratives as I have explained before. As a conclusion, it is indeed remarkable to observe how The Sacred Bull is vividly used in the iconography that marks the Hebrews (i.e., Aryans) while the 'Naga' was modifiable depending on the context in which the Hebrews were located.

The Soviet Union had achieved an unusual boon through the pact. The Eastern part of Europe, from the Baltic to the Black Sea was declared as their sphere of influence. They spelled out by name the three Baltic republics: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - all three formerly, under the tsars, Russian territory. The two signatories included as part of the Soviet sphere of influence Bessarabia. Northern Bukovina had not been included in that sinister deal, yet Russia made its own decision to annex it, together with Bessarabia. They made it a kind of connecting bridge to Southern Poland.

         On June 26, the Russians gave Romania an ultimatum claiming Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Next day the territories were occupied. The former used to be Russian until 1918, but Bukovina was for hundreds of years Austrian. The Russians just rounded out the border line that ran through Southern Poland toward Bessarabia. The Germans must have felt relieved that Russia had not occupied all of Romania, because there was nobody to stop them. The Germans bought oil from Ploe sti (Romania) and would have been in trouble without that supply.

The antisemitism of the Russians surfaced glaringly. It soon became all too clearly apparent that the liberators hated us as much as the Germans did. On the other hand, they needed personnel everywhere: for the army, the coal mines in the Ukraine, workers for the Northern Territory of Murmansk and Pechora, where the lend lease help from the U.S. arrived. Just as in the first week of war, in June 41 when they grabbed men to the armed forces, now they did the same and they took women and girls to go to the Donbas - the coal mines along the Don river, in the Ukraine. This was a very frightening time.

I was just thinking I can’t imagine them being thrilled with you taking off like this, halfway around the world no less, leaving them shorthanded and--then I thought, oh no, something must have happened, because why else would you--” She broke off, shook her head, and seemed to look sightlessly at her hands, still gripping the steering wheel. “Because why else would I what?” She finally looked at him, and along with that goodly dose of agitation and not a little honest confusion, he saw that sliver of vulnerability again. “Because what else would cause a man I knew to be perfectly sane and fully committed to running one of the biggest cattle stations in the Northern Territory alongside his big, loud, boisterous, and very close-knit and beloved family--to up and run halfway around the world chasing after a…after--” “You?” She blinked, closed her mouth, opened it again, then simply shook her head and looked away. A beat passed, then another. “So, they’re all okay?” she asked him anyway, back to staring at her hands. “Big Jack? Ian? Sadie?” She glanced at him. “Little Mac?” He lifted his hand, palm out. “All safe and sound, I swear. Last I checked anyway.” His grin settled back to a quiet smile. “The only one who’s lost anything is me.” She ducked her chin; then he saw her pull herself together. And when she raised her eyes to his once more, she was all Kerry McCrae. Bold, confident, smart, and more than a little smart-assed. Potent combination, that. Or so he’d learned. When she’d first come to their station, hired on by his father, Big Jack, as a jackaroo--or jillaroo, as the female ranch trainees were called--Cooper had told his dad and his two siblings that the American wouldn’t last a fortnight. A wanderer who’d gone a bit troppo more than likely, traipsing around the world for kicks, thinking station life was some romantic outback romp, was about to find out she’d bitten off more than she could chew. He bit back a grin at the memory of how she’d taken on Cameroo and every single member of the Jax family, wrapping them around her like they were a comfortable, well-worn coat. And the only chewing that had been done was by him, eating his words. “You know, a more prudent man might have wanted to use that newfangled thing called a phone, or to shoot off an e-mail on that fancy laptop Sadie was so excited about finally getting for her schoolwork,” Kerry said, more quietly now. “Find out if the other party even remembered his name, much less if she was interested in doing anything more with him than trying to herd ten thousand head of cattle all over the godforsaken outback.” “Twenty thousand. And you just told your entire town you loved Australia and its godforsaken outback.” She nodded but said nothing; there was not even a hint of that earthy, easygoing smile that was usually never more than a breath away.

Just morning tea while they refuel in Charleville, land at Quilpie, lunch in Windorah while the pilots have their break, and then home.’ Birdsville. Corner country to Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory.

THE NORTHERN SEA ROUTE AND THE NEXT COLD WAR The Arctic is heating up—and not just in temperature and thawing ice. The construction of new bases and the restoration of old Soviet installations along Russia’s northern coasts is as described in the book. The stated explanation for this build-up is that Russia intends to better guard its coasts as the Arctic ice melts, to help protect the Northern Sea Route—that shortcut from the Pacific to the Atlantic. But Russia is also seeking to push its territorial boundary farther into the Arctic, staking flags, doing geological tests—and for good reason. The Arctic is a vast storehouse of rare minerals, oil, and natural gas, not to mention being strategically important. Even with the war in Ukraine straining resources, Russia has not slowed its expansion in the north. That alone highlights the importance that Russia places upon its ambitions in the Arctic. The entire region is an icy powder keg waiting for a match. For a more comprehensive look at this subject, I recommend these two articles: “The Ice Curtain: Russia’s Arctic Military Presence” by Heather A. Conley, Matthew Melino, and Jon B. Alterman (from Center for Strategic & International Studies) “Russia’s Military Posture in the Arctic” by Mathieu Boulègue (Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs)

The change to the Arctic has been so rapid and sudden that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared “the Arctic as we’ve known it is now a thing of the past,” even coining the phrase the “New Arctic” to describe this fundamental shift.* There are currently more than nine hundred infrastructure projects in development, totaling over a trillion dollars in investment. A majority of which is being undertaken by Russia. They’ve reopened abandoned Soviet-era military installations and established a slew of new seaports across their northern coast. Even China—which has no territorial claim to the Arctic—has expanded its global infrastructure initiative, known as Belt and Road, to include projects across the Arctic Circle. China envisions creating a northern sea route that could cut travel time between Asia and Europe by a third. To this end, China is building a fleet of hardened ice-capable cargo ships and fuel carriers to traverse this future “Polar Silk Road.”* With each passing year, the stakes in the Arctic continue to climb—as does the tension. It’s estimated that a quarter of the planet’s oil and gas remains hidden there.* It is also a treasure chest of rare earth minerals (neodymium, praseodymium, terbium, and dysprosium) that are vital to the world’s renewable energy projects, including the surging production of electric vehicles. In the Russian Arctic alone, the mineral value is estimated to be upwards of two trillion U.S. dollars.* Then there are the vast new seas open to fishing, where conflicts are already arising.

A worried Abdulaziz asked H. St. John Philby, “Where will I get the manpower to govern Yemen?”41 Moreover, neither Britain nor Italy was enthusiastic about Saudi expansion into Yemen. Britain had interests in Aden and Italy in the Horn of Africa. Both nations had treaties of friendship with Yemen. The British government advised Abdulaziz that staying in Yemen could risk war with Italy and that London would not support him if it did.42 For the first and only time in his career, Abdulaziz ordered a strategic retreat, pulling out of Hodeidah and Sa’dah. Although he withdrew from large parts of what is today northern Yemen, the 1934 Treaty of Taif confirmed Saudi control of Najran and Jizan provinces. Across the border, many Yemenis continue to harbor irredentist claims on this Saudi territory, which they sometimes refer to as Historic Yemen.

Desert heath-myrtle Meaning: Flame, I burn Thryptomene maisonneuvii | Northern Territory Traditionally, Anangu women beat pukara (Pit.) with a wooden bowl to collect dew containing nectar from the flowers. Thryptomene, derived from Greek, means coy or prudish; this bush appears modest but in winter through to spring produces a cloak of tiny white flowers with red centres, blooming as if revealing a secret.

Celebrating Valentine's Day is like falling in love with Alice Springs all over again.

If Indians are in the area you settle in, you will have no trouble with them unless you get out of line. Indians are one of the easiest race types of all to get along with. Although solid of face they have a great sense of humor and enjoy real comedy immensely. A friend of mine near Gallup, New Mexico had a store that he called John's Teepee that sold Indian souvenirs and curios. He up a number of large roadside signs in Navajo territory. They read: GENUINE BEADED BELTS AND NAVAJO RUGS AT JOHN'S TEEPEE 1 MILE. The first night the signs were up the Indians painted the right side of the T in teepee in a half circle making the T into a P. In northern Arizona through the woodland areas the state put up road signs reading LOOK OUT FOR THE DEER. The Indians quickly painted a line half way through the D in deer making the D into a B. To me this kind of humor is really funny, a lot funnier than the form jokes written by television writers and memorized by so-called television "Adlib" comedians who are no funnier than their ability to memorize a script.

Sir.” Chance extended a hand, which Kit shook. “Just stopping by.” “We crossed paths at the library,” I said quickly. “Chance is interested in a book Shelton mentioned, so he hitched a ride out here. His driver is coming to get him, but it might take a while. Okay if he waits at our place?” “His driver. Right.” Kit chuckled. “Not a problem. I’ll have my butler take care of you.” Chance feigned a laugh at my father’s lame joke. Please, please go inside. Kit refocused on me. “I came over to tell you—you’ll need to feed yourself tonight. I’ve got a pile of work to do and Whitney’s at her bridge club.” “Okay.” My curiosity got the better of me. “Something wrong?” “Too many morons in the world.” Kit’s lips curled into a frown. “Some day-tripping yahoos visited Loggerhead Island this morning and stirred up trouble. Smashed things, made a mess. Now I have to write a dozen incident reports for the environmental commission. As if I don’t have enough to do.” Shelton’s eyes narrowed. “Smashed things?” Kit nodded tiredly. “They took out the wolf-pack feeders. Painted hooky symbols on a few trees, which got the monkeys all riled. H-troop bolted their territory in the northern woods and won’t go back. You wouldn’t believe the howling.” Kit yawned, apparently missing the electric tension that had infused our group. “What hooky symbols?” I asked, as casually as possible. “Triangles.” Kit snorted in disbelief. “Big black-and-white triangles all over the place, and a red-eyed dog face on one of the feeders. Like these bozos were taunting Whisper’s pack. People can be such idiots.” My eyes flicked to Chance. Then Ben. No one needed to say it. The Trinity. On Loggerhead.

Roll out the welcome mat, Isaiah had written as his only comment on the forwarded email from the Asteri’s imperial secretary announcing the new positions. “They’re not bad,” Hunt said, staring blankly at the revelers now gathering around a Fae male doing a keg stand in the corner. “That’s the problem.” Bryce’s brows bunched as she scanned the email. “Ephraim—he currently shares Rodinia with Jakob. Yeah, he seems decent enough. But he’s going to northern Pangera. Who … Oh. Who the Hel is Celestina?” Hunt frowned. “She’s stayed out of the spotlight. She oversees Nena—population, like, fifty. She has one legion under her command. One. She doesn’t even have a triarii. The legion is literally controlled by the Asteri—all watchdogs for the Northern Rift. She’s a figurehead.” “Big promotion, then.” Hunt grunted. “Everything I’ve heard about her sounds unusually nice.” “No chance it’s true?” “Where Archangels are concerned? No.” He crossed his arms. Fury said from the couch, “For what it’s worth, Athalar, I haven’t heard anything bad, either.” Juniper asked, “So this is promising, right?” Hunt shook his head. This wasn’t a conversation to have in public, but he said, “I can’t figure out why the Asteri would appoint her here, when she’s only handled a small territory until now. She must be their puppet.

The first outsiders to reach Australia were not Europeans (the Dutch landed there in 1606), but African sailors from Kilwa, as evidenced by the discovery of copper Kilwan coins, inscribed in Arabic with the name of an amir of Kilwa, dug up on Marchinbar Island, Northern Territory. Asians had travelled east and west much earlier: Javanese and Malays had probably reached Australia, as suggested by two Javanese inscriptions.

Not every former president uses their position for good. Franklin Pierce, a Northerner who favored popular sovereignty—the idea that democracy allowed citizens, and not the federal government, to decide if the territory in which they lived would allow slavery—tried to rally the living ex-presidents in 1861 to resolve the Civil War. But his efforts were torpedoed by Martin Van Buren, and Pierce became a vocal critic of Lincoln, a sympathizer for the South, and a correspondent of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Worse still, Pierce’s predecessor, the Virginian John Tyler, defected from the Union and won a seat in the Confederate House of Representatives. He died a traitor in January 1862, and President Lincoln denied his predecessor a state funeral. Instead, Tyler was honored in

Not every former president uses their position for good. Franklin Pierce, a Northerner who favored popular sovereignty—the idea that democracy allowed citizens, and not the federal government, to decide if the territory in which they lived would allow slavery—tried to rally the living ex-presidents in 1861 to resolve the Civil War. But his efforts were torpedoed by Martin Van Buren, and Pierce became a vocal critic of Lincoln, a sympathizer for the South, and a correspondent of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Worse still, Pierce’s predecessor, the Virginian John Tyler, defected from the Union and won a seat in the Confederate House of Representatives. He died a traitor in January 1862, and President Lincoln denied his predecessor a state funeral. Instead, Tyler was honored in Richmond, the Confederate capital.

The human rebellion remained confined to the northern reaches of Pangera, the sprawling territory across the Haldren Sea, but Philip Briggs had done his best to bring it over to Valbara.

Tell me what happened in Vallahan.” The ancient, mountainous Fae territory across the northern sea had been stirring since before the war with Hybern, and had been both enemy and ally to Prythian in different historical eras. What role Vallahan’s hot-tempered king and proud people would play in this new world of theirs was yet to be decided, though much of its fate seemed to depend upon Mor’s now-frequent presence at their court as Rhys’s emissary. Indeed, Mor’s eyes shuttered. “They don’t want to sign the new treaty.

Rhys stalked to the table, where there was another map spread, figurines dotting its surface. A map of Prythian—and Hybern. Every court in our land had been marked, along with villages and cities and rivers and mountain passes. Every court … but the Night Court. The vast, northern territory was utterly blank. Not even a mountain range had been etched in. Strange, likely part of some strategy I didn’t understand.

Speaking more broadly though, this basic story type in which a hero pursues a magical bird is classified as Aarne-Thompson folktale type 550 “The Golden Bird.” It’s found across Europe, and even as far abroad as Quebec. However, some narratives are more “magical” than others. Versions in which the Golden apple-thief and damsel are combined into one character appear to be limited mainly to three regions: • The Northern Caucasus (Nart Sagas)12 • The Balkans and the Carpathians.13, 14 • Some East Slavic territories.15,16 In most other regions, it is rare to find stories of AT 550: The Golden Bird in which the fruit-stealing bird shapeshifts into a beautiful maiden. With a few exceptions, the regions listed above seem to represent the primary distribution range of this tale type.

river Rubicon in northern Italy, which separated his province of Cisalpine Gaul from Roman territory proper.

The removed Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles had brought with them approximately five thousand black slaves, and the bondage institution persisted in Indian Territory as the planter-slaveholder elite set out to rebuild its exchange-oriented cotton and tobacco economy. This created secure markets for Comanche slavers who now commanded extensive raiding domains in Texas and northern Mexico.

All territory up to the northern border of Thessaly was already

The Union army's southward march-especially in the Mississippi Valley-stretched supply lines, brought thousands of defenseless ex-slaves under Union protection, and exposed large expanses of occupied territory to Confederate raiders, further multiplying the army's demand for soldiers. On the home front, these new demands sparked violent opposition to federal manpower policies. The Enrollment Act of March 1863 allowed wealthy conscripts to buy their way out of military service by either paying a $300 commutation fee or employing a substitute. Others received hardship exemptions as specified in the act, though political influence rather than genuine need too often determined an applicant's success. Those without money or political influence found the draft especially burdensome. In July, hundreds of New Yorkers, many of the Irish immigrants, angered by the inequities of the draft, lashed out at the most visible and vulnerable symbols of the war: their black neighbors. The riot raised serious questions about the enrollment system and sent Northern politicians scurrying for an alternative to conscription. To even the most politically naive Northerners, the enlistment of black men provided a means to defuse draft resistance at a time when the federal army's need for soldiers was increasing. At the same time, well-publicized battle achievements by black regiments at Port Hudson and Milliken's Bend, Louisiana, and at Fort Wagner, South Carolina, eased popular fears that black men could not fight, mitigated white opposition within army ranks, and stoked the enthusiasm of both recruiters and black volunteers.

They were “Scotch-Irish”—that is, from the lowlands of Scotland, the northern counties of England, and Ulster in Northern Ireland. The borderlands—as this region was known—were remote and lawless territories that had been fought over for hundreds of years. The people of the region were steeped in violence.

Though California may officially have been free territory, its political leadership was still dominated by Southern sympathizers—voters called them the Chivalry faction, or the Chivs. No Northern state had more draconian laws restricting the lives and rights of its black inhabitants

From Gary Snyder: I heard a Crow elder say: “You know, I think if people stay somewhere long enough-even white people- the spirits will begin to speak to them. It’s the power of the spirits coming up from the land.” Bioregional awareness teaches us in specific ways. It is not enough just to “love nature” or want to be “in harmony with Gaia.” Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place, and it must be grounded in information and experience. This is so unexceptional a kind of knowledge that everyone in Europe, Asia and Africa used to take for granted… Knowing a bit about the flora we could enjoy questions like: where do Alaska and Mexico meet? It would be somewhere on the north coast of California, where Canada Jay and Sitka Spruce lace together with manzanita and Blue Oak. But instead of northern California, let’s call it “Shasta Bioregion.” The present state of California (the old Alta California territory) falls into at least three natural divisions, and the northern third looks, as the Douglas Fir example, well to the north. East of the watershed divide to the west near Sacramento, is the Great Basin, north of Shasta is the Cascadia/Colombia region, and then farther north is what we call Ish River country, the drainages of Puget Sound. Why should we do this kind of visualization? It prepares us to begin to be at home in this landscape. There are tens of millions of people in North America who were physically born here but who are not actually living here intellectually, imaginatively, or morally. Native Americans to be sure have a prior claim to the term native. But as they love this land, they will welcome the conversion of the millions of immigrant psyches into “native americans.” For the non-Native Americans to become at home on this continent, he or she must be born again in this hemisphere, on this continent, properly called Turtle Island.

From Alan Thein Duening: Picture North America from space. Look at the upper left and start an imaginary line on the rugged coast of southern Alaska. Climb the ridges that encircle Prince William Sound. Cross the snowy teeth of the Chugach Mountains and descend through kettle-pond country to the feet of the towering Alaska Range. Rise again to the bitter heights and turning southeast along the crest, clip the corner of the Yukon Territory. Enter British Columbia and veer east through its folding north. Turn your line south when you reach the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. Follow the divide down the thousand-mile spine of British Columbia, across Montana, along the buttressed ridges of the Idaho border and into Wyoming as far as Jackson Hole. There, leave the divide and turn westward toward the coast. Following the swells and benches that limit the Columbia Basin, dip southward into Utah and Nevada, then northward again around the high desert of central Oregon. When you approach the Cascade Mountains, veer southwest through the tangled topography of northern California to the crest of the Coast Range. Just north of San Francisco Bay, descend to the shores of the Pacific. The line you have drawn is an unfamiliar one. You won’t find it on maps. But it shows a geographical unit more real, in ecological sense, than any of the lines governments draw. You have drawn a biological region, a bioregion. Specifically, you have outlines the watersheds of rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean through North America’s temperate rain forest zone with a fifteen-hundred-mile belt of rain forests along the coast. The unity of this diverse bioregion is the movement of its water; every ounce of moisture that the ocean throws into the sky and the sky hurls down on the land inside this region’s borders tumbles toward the rain forest coast. If it does not evaporate or get trapped in underground aquifers along the way, water will reach that dripping shoreline through one of several hundred swift, cold rivers. Most likely, it will travel through the Columbia or the Fraser rivers, home to the Earth’s greatest population of migrating salmon. This place, defined by water running to woodlands, has no perfect name. You can call it Rain Forest Province, the North Pacific Slope, or Cascadia… Natural units of place such as this have always mattered more to people than has humanity in general or the planet in its entirety. Indeed, history is unequivocal; people will sacrifice for villages, homelands, or nations, even giving their lives. But humans seem unwilling to sacrifice for their planet, despite the fact that it is now suffering proportionately greater losses from social decay and environmental destruction than most countries at war.

In reality, two factors often tied to the emergence of nationalism in the early modern West, general education (as distinct from specialized training) and commercial printing, already existed in China by the eleventh century.20 Under such circumstances, one might expect the appearance of a new form of collective consciousness in Northern Song China as well. The relationship between the Song nation and the modern Chinese nation is, however, complex. Besides adhering to a very different ideology of political legitimacy, Northern Song Chinese differed from modern nationalists in how they defined the boundaries of their state. Contemporary China is conceived today to be a multiethnic state composed of fifty-six “nationalities.” Its “natural” territory extends deep into Central Asia. In its Song iteration, as will be clear in a later chapter, China was imagined to be a monoethnic nation that controlled neither Manchuria, nor the modern peripheral provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, and Xinjiang.

There is a schism between the north and south of Caradore, because the religion centered around Foy made incursions into Hamagara two thousand years ago. The Hamagarids are the true Caradoreans. They comprise many factions and tribes and have little to do with the south. The southerners derive from ancient clans that moved north from Magravandias. They’ve steered clear of the northern territories for a long time, apart from the occasional intrepid explorer, or some needy soul seeking enlightenment.

claiming the entire Guedinna as his territory and domain. The issue between Il and Entemena, however, was not decided by war. Instead, a compromise seems to have been forced upon them by a third party, probably once again the northern non-Sumerian ruler who claimed lordship over Sumer as a whole. By and large, the decision seems to have favored Lagash, since the old Mesilim-Eannatum line was retained as the fixed boundary between Umma and Lagash. On the other hand, nothing was said about compensation by the Ummaites for the revenue they had withheld; nor do they seem to have been held responsible any longer for ensuring the water supply of the Guedinna-this task was now left to the Lagashites themselves.15 Entemena was the last of the great ensi's of the Ur-Nanshe dynasty; his son Enannatum II reigned only briefly and achieved but little, to judge from the fact that only one of his inscriptions has been recovered to date-a door socket dedicated to the restoration of Ningirsu's

made slavery legal. They called their nation the Confederate States. A major reason the Southern States decided to secede from the Union was because they felt they were being economically taken advantage of by the Northern States. The Southerners were mostly agricultural planters while the Northerners came from a more industrialized society. The Southerners wanted to sell their goods (such as cotton,rice, tobacco and sugar) directly to the Europeans and thereby hold on to a bigger share of the profit. But the Northerners served as the middlemen; the biggest banks were located in the Northern States and thus the Northerners were able to provide the loans and investments. Economic independence of the Southern States would have impoverished the North, just as the abolition of slavery would have impoverished the Southern States. Lincoln therefore wanted to preserve the Union among other things. The Southerners, avowed racists, moreover wanted to massively expand the slave territory by including all the territory located to the south of the Rio Grande and including Cuba as well. J.A. Rogers

Historical Setting A reference to “Jonah son of Amittai” in 2Ki 14:25 places the setting for the book of Jonah between 790 and 760 BC. Jonah therefore serves in the generation just before Amos and Hosea, at the beginning of classical prophecy in Israel. During the time of Jonah, the reign of Jeroboam II (793–753 BC) achieved unparalleled prosperity and military success in the history of Israel’s divided monarchy. The Arameans were the only hindrance to territorial expansion. Assyria, in a period of decline, was preoccupied with internal security. This background is important for it shows that the northern kingdom of Israel at this time was near the top, not the bottom, in the realm of international politics. This situation was a reversal from a century earlier when, under Shalmaneser III, the Assyrian Empire had extended its control into the west, exercising authority over Aram, Israel, Judah, and many others. The end of his reign, however, saw revolt by several Assyrian centers (including Nineveh) from 826–820 BC. His son, Shamshi-Adad V, subdued the rebellion, but Assyrian control over the west weakened considerably. Shamshi-Adad V died about 811 BC and left as heir to the throne his young son, Adadnirari III. Until the boy came of age the country was ruled by Shamshi-Adad’s widow, Sammuramat, who retained extensive control until her death. Adadnirari reigned until 783 BC. His city of residence and capital was not Nineveh, but Calah. He was succeeded by three sons: Shalmaneser IV, Ashur-Dan III and Ashurnirari V, respectively. This was a period of practical anarchy. Particularly notable is the series of rebellions between 763 and 758. These were led by disaffected officials who show evidence of usurping royal prerogatives. In such a political climate, a prophecy proclaiming the imminent fall of Nineveh would be taken quite seriously. With the accession of Tiglath-Pileser III in 745 BC, a new dynasty began that established Assyrian supremacy for a century. Tiglath-Pileser III was succeeded by Shalmaneser V, Sargon II and, finally, Sennacherib, who enlarged Nineveh and made it the capital of the Assyrian Empire more than 50 years after the time of Jonah. The importance of this information for the study of the book of Jonah is the understanding that at the time of Jonah, Assyria had not been a threat to Israel for a generation, and it would be no threat for a generation to come. In addition, when Jonah was sent to Nineveh, he was being sent not to the capital city of a vast empire but to one of the provincial centers of a struggling nation. Some would consider this evidence that the book of Jonah was written several centuries after the Assyrian Empire had come and gone by an author unfamiliar with the details of history. Preferably, it could suggest that God had chosen to send Jonah to Nineveh in anticipation of the role it would eventually play.

every day conversation. When this happens the meanings behind many words become lost and its original intent may never be positively identified. It is left to scholars and linguist to offer their best educated guess. Rarely is there one hundred percent agreement on every rendering, although a majority opinion can exist for many words and we can be relatively certain of their renderings. But for every such word there are words whose renderings are hotly debated among scholars. After Hebrew died, Aramaic became the common language of the people and was the common language spoken in Israel at the time of Christ. Jesus came from Galilee which was located in the Northern territory of Israel where they spoke a Northern or Old Galilean dialect of Hebrew which was more idiomatic and colloquial than the Southern dialect spoken in Judea where the Pharisees and other religious leaders lived. Up until just a few years ago it was believed that the Old Galilean Aramaic dialect was also a dead language until it was discovered